Why This Method
hen I began teaching recorder, I constantly found myself supplementing the available method books with the historical repertoire that I love. As a recorder player, nothing satisfies me more than playing ensemble music from the Renaissance. I am captivated by the experience of contributing one voice to an interweaving texture of polyphony, where individual melodic lines combine to create a beautiful whole. With its pure tone, the recorder is perfectly suited for playing in consort. When the intonation is just right, the harmonies can almost be physically felt, which makes the experience rewarding for players and audience alike. I wanted to make this world accessible to my young students.
Over a period of several years, I created my own arrangements of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque pieces so that the children I was teaching could experience the music that gives me a zing of delight each time I play or hear it. These arrangements included multiple possible voices so that kids could feel the satisfaction of communal music-making from the beginning. After working with many students individually and in group settings, I was pleased to see that my system worked: kids liked the pieces and made good progress learning them.
I was inspired to adapt my teaching repertoire further when, always eager for new pedagogical inspiration, I sought professional development through Suzuki teacher training. Shinichi Suzuki was a violinist whose teaching approach, which is based heavily on learning by ear, relies on the idea that children can gain musical skill as naturally as they acquire language. Suzuki began sharing his original method with other teachers in the 1950s. In the 1970s, Katherine White applied his philosophy to develop a Suzuki recorder curriculum. Her innovative idea was to cover most of the instrument’s holes with tape for beginners. With the holes sealed, students could focus on the gentle air needed to make a beautiful sound on the low notes while gradually learning to cover the finger holes one by one.
Putting these ideas into practice myself — teaching more by ear and changing the order in which I introduce notes — I observed students developing a more solid technical foundation at an earlier point in their studies. In Recorder from the Ground Up I have gratefully borrowed these innovations from the Suzuki recorder pedagogy that Katherine White developed. For those interested in exploring effective strategies for teaching recorder to children, I highly recommend the training courses offered by the Suzuki Association of the Americas.
Playing Historical Repertoire
he repertoire in this book is rooted in the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and the pieces are carefully selected and arranged to appeal to young people. Simplified arrangements embed kids in the rich melodic and harmonic soundscape of this repertoire from the very beginning, so that they inherit an easy familiarity with the language. As students build simple improvisatory skills and develop their ability to carry an independent line in an ensemble, they can gain a sense of ownership and autonomy. The experience of playing in consort can give them the deep artistic satisfaction found in a slow craft, which is often elusive in today’s fast-paced world. Playing early repertoire also engages kids in the magic of history and empowers them to be stewards of an ancient art.
Learning by Imitation
earning by ear is the oldest way of acquiring musical knowledge and skills. Throughout history, many musicians have learned and shared their own skills this way.
When children learn by ear, they are able to focus on making a beautiful sound and building up the foundations of good technique, without the added complexity of decoding written notation. As they gain an intuitive familiarity with the recorder’s geography, they can reach a deeper level of proficiency, allowing them to make music expressively from very early in their skill progression.
To support this process, it is important for students to hear the tunes enough that they can sing them. The next step is for the teacher to demonstrate the physical movements needed to create the sound that the students have learned by ear. The teacher demonstrates small sections of the tune for the student to imitate back, then longer sections, and eventually the whole tune.
Using the Recordings
he recordings are essential to this teaching curriculum. Students need to hear their own part to imitate it, and they also find it rewarding to hear that simple melody in the more musically rich context of the harmonic whole.
Three playlists accompany this book:
- A listening album with performance arrangements of the pieces
- Short demonstration tracks to help students learn individual versions of pieces
- Accompaniment-only tracks for students to play along with
In private lessons, recordings can be provided to students for use at home. Teachers of school groups can use the recordings in class, both to teach the tunes and for students to play along with.
A Spiral Approach: Scaffolding skills by building on familiar tunes
unique feature of this book is that most of the tunes and patterns recur in different versions, all of which are taught by ear. With this approach, students learn several different versions of a piece. Some pieces return with additional melodies that can be played simultaneously as an ensemble arrangement, while others appear first in a simplified version and then in a complete form. Many melodies and harmonic frameworks are brought back in a new key as a way to introduce more notes.
As students learn new versions of a piece, they can start to explore simple musical decision-making. For example, they can choose which melody to play over a particular ground bass, when to play a simplified or complete version of a tune, or how they might use an ornamental pattern to embellish a simple melodic line. This experience making creative decisions within a clear structure naturally lays a foundation for improvisation. As more experienced students learn new material that expands their options for each piece, they continue to hear and play melodies they have previously learned, reinforcing the foundational skills that lead to mastery. This approach offers many possibilities for combining students at different levels.
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